I dont see it either, it's background telling.
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Mass Effect Andromeda's poor handling of LGBT
- Thread starter Burbeting
- Start date
I dont see it either, it's background telling.
depths20XX
Member
It seems most people are actually agreeing that it is bad writing and in bad taste to have a trans character deadnaming so not sure why you're bringing this in here.
Edit: lol and then the post above mine. Nevermind.
User 73706
Banned
"im okay with diversity in my video games as long as it isnt forced"
*someone like Kung Jin or Ellie exists*
"yeah see but why does it always have to be about forced characters and diversity quotas? it's really jarring when devs try and force their political agendas in gaming"
*someone like this MEA NPC exists*
"oh yeah, there you go, that's how you write a trans character"
*someone like Kung Jin or Ellie exists*
"yeah see but why does it always have to be about forced characters and diversity quotas? it's really jarring when devs try and force their political agendas in gaming"
*someone like this MEA NPC exists*
"oh yeah, there you go, that's how you write a trans character"
7DollarHagane
Banned
They would probably be better off at this point just not having romance options. It always seemed very forced in their games anyway.
Is it?
"Hi, tell me how you ended up on this ship"
"Well I'm trans and I used to be named so-and-so."
Yeah, no. They did a far better job with Krem in DA:I regarding his being trans and how that was addressed than this.
Still, I'll wait and see how that particular character is written in the full game.
Frozenprince
Banned
Yeah the trans character is definitely an issue. Would have rather they'd have just not tried than try and end up with that.
Kind of wish we had separated these topics into different threads. I'm not trans but as someone who has spent a lot of time with trans men and women professionally: the deadnaming is clearly a well-intentioned misstep. They should have run that dialogue by a trans person. But it's pretty important to differentiate between malicious deadnaming and deadnaming born of misunderstanding and this is clearly an example of the latter. In my personal view - and I defer to trans gamers if they are more offended here - this is less a problem for being transphobic and more a problem for just being a portrayal of a trans person that doesn't ring true. I don't know a single transgender man or woman who would casually drop their original name, especially not with a stranger. I find it more unrealistic than offensive.
The male gay romances thing I actually find considerably more problematic. It means they made conscious choices that shortchange gamers of one sexuality at a very high level in the design process. No, I'm not suggesting they sat around and twirled their mustaches and said "that'll show those pesky gays", but a lot of people were involved in choosing how romances work, and they knowingly set up a system that severely limits certain kinds of role playing. The fact that they have more abundant options for lesbians is especially worthy of an eye roll - it suggests those romances, too, are there for the straight men they appear to have had in mind throughout the design process.
And the outcome is kind of sad for gamers of any type - games are better when they have an expansive set of play options, and reflect an expansive world view. I, for one, love playing RPG romances of all gender configurations. If it's done well, I think it can expand my horizons and introduce me to a cool new perspective. When a game is so clearly designed from a single perspective, for a single audience - straight males - it hurts the entire work, for everyone.
I understand the arguments against Mass Effect 3's "everyone is potentially bisexual" solution, but I ultimately find it to be a far better approach. In-universe, I welcomed the idea of a future with more openness to sexual fluidity. And in terms of gameplay, I welcomed having more options.
If you're going to roll that back to give characters overt and specific sexualities, I respect that. It could be a bold choice, to have some characters reject your advances for that reason, and others hit on you and force you to reject their advances. But if you're going to make that leap, my feeling is you'd better be up for the challenge of writing it into the characters sensitively. And you'd better damn well be ready to have a meaningful number of options across different orientations.
The male gay romances thing I actually find considerably more problematic. It means they made conscious choices that shortchange gamers of one sexuality at a very high level in the design process. No, I'm not suggesting they sat around and twirled their mustaches and said "that'll show those pesky gays", but a lot of people were involved in choosing how romances work, and they knowingly set up a system that severely limits certain kinds of role playing. The fact that they have more abundant options for lesbians is especially worthy of an eye roll - it suggests those romances, too, are there for the straight men they appear to have had in mind throughout the design process.
And the outcome is kind of sad for gamers of any type - games are better when they have an expansive set of play options, and reflect an expansive world view. I, for one, love playing RPG romances of all gender configurations. If it's done well, I think it can expand my horizons and introduce me to a cool new perspective. When a game is so clearly designed from a single perspective, for a single audience - straight males - it hurts the entire work, for everyone.
I understand the arguments against Mass Effect 3's "everyone is potentially bisexual" solution, but I ultimately find it to be a far better approach. In-universe, I welcomed the idea of a future with more openness to sexual fluidity. And in terms of gameplay, I welcomed having more options.
If you're going to roll that back to give characters overt and specific sexualities, I respect that. It could be a bold choice, to have some characters reject your advances for that reason, and others hit on you and force you to reject their advances. But if you're going to make that leap, my feeling is you'd better be up for the challenge of writing it into the characters sensitively. And you'd better damn well be ready to have a meaningful number of options across different orientations.
Ryzaki009
Member
Yep if you can't do something right don't do it at all.
Frozenprince
Banned
As a gay man I'm used to this, sadly. I DO expect better from Bioware so there's no excuse, but it's something I'm eminently used too. It sucks that apparently the only gay options aren't actually developed characters either just randoms with canned faces. Supremely disappointing.
While I agree this feels like a major misstep, if they can understand their mistake, apologize, and do better in the future, I think it has more value than just never trying. But as you've said in your other post, this is Bioware, and we generally expect better out of them to begin with...
Bioware usually tries hard to be ahead of the curve on this stuff. Seems like one of the many things they may have lost in switching teams.
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
Being LGBT+ is about much more than merely sex.
Frozenprince
Banned
I enjoyed Mass Effect and DAI so much because they just allow you to be gay and not have that be all about fucking.
No. We only have enough trans characters that can be counted on fingers.
Shitty characters is part of gaming as a whole.
If the character is saying that she is actualy a man and every person like her is delusional and should use men's bathroom than I can understand the "better not have it", but I rather have a good character who is respected who deadnames weirdly than a complete erasure of trans identities in breath of the wild (or the alternative interpretation : the acceptance of a transphobic society).
Like I said before, Birdetta is one of the big names when people think of trans in games ... and she is deadnamed EVERYWHERE
The trans character is problematic because it propagates a hurtful idea... but yeah, the lack of male homosexual options is the problem, not the achievement.
Well fortunately those are not the only two options.
A Link to the Past
Banned
Deadnaming is transphobic, all of the other stuff you added on is not. I guess my question is, if someone made a racist joke and apologized profusely and expressed a legitimate effort to learn, would that make the joke not racist? Or would it be a case of someone who said or did something racist and appreciates that they did wrong? Because TBH, it feels like you're setting up a narrative by responding to "Deadnaming is transphobic" by creating this specific scenario about a hypothetical cis person accidentally deadnaming a hypothetical trans person, as opposed to the very common instance of people refusing to use the proper name for a person, ie calling Caitlyn Jenner Bruce Jenner.
I think it's not just the relatively small number of options or just the achievement, it's a multitude of smaller problems which, put together, all seem to spell out the pretty clear message that, in the devs' eyes (I mean, almost definitely not all of them but you know what I mean), gay male romances are less important and less worthy of attention than other kinds of romances.
A Link to the Past
Banned
Trans people don't lay out their backgrounds by telling people their deadname. The term means exactly what you think it means.
I mean, I'll have to respectfully disagree there. I'd sooner see companies try, fail, apologize, and do better. We see more progress through failures than we do through inaction.
It's 2 out of 10 if I've counted correctly, not 2 out of 7 (though I'm not entirely certain which of those 10 are full romances and which are flings). But like I've said, it's not just the number (though gay men having less options than any other group and straight women only having three to straight men's five isn't great), it's a multitude of smaller problems which, on their own, wouldn't necessarily be a big deal, but put together leave a very sour taste in my mouth. Again:
- No M/M squadmate romance (squadmates generally get more dialogue/character development, etc. plus you get to take them on missions, obviously)
- All M/M romance options have character creator faces rather than unique ones
- M/M romances have far less content than many of the non-M/M ones
- M/M sex scenes are fade-to-black with only above-the-waist nudity, whereas many of the non-M/M sex scenes are longer, fully animated and show naked butts and breasts.
- Gay Scott has the least romance options out of any gender/orientation combination
- Gay men are the only players who'll need to play as a different gender/orientation to get that romance achievement
Sounds like they half assed the same sex relationships then. Probably a last minute addition?
I hold no truck with them for not putting the same amount of effort into giving both gay and straight characters the same treatment. It would be nice, but for a role playing game like this its to be expected. Besides, I don't think any gay men I know would mind too much having to have their avatar awkwardly flirt with an npc resembling a female in order to get an achievement.
Well, I'm a gay man and I mind and many other people who're fans of BioWare's games mind, as well. If this were another franchise, another development studio, I maybe wouldn't mind quite as much but BioWare has a certain reputation when it comes to these things and they've got the LGBT+ fanbase to go along with it. It's fair to hold them to a higher standard because they're the ones who set themselves that standard with their previous games.
broscientific
Member
It's not necessarily the achievement that's the issue, though. The issue is also with the level of quality that went into developing the romance options for others and the number of choices available.
...sigh
I missed that post and now I'm ROFLing at it lmao
Suzushiiro
Banned
I think people are aware that deadnaming in the present/future tense (ie calling someone by their pre-transition name post-transition) is rude, I think it's mostly in the past tense where people may not be clear on how it's supposed to work (ie if you are talking about who they were/things they did pre-transition do you use the pre-transition or post-transition name.) Obviously you should research that shit if you're actually writing a trans character, but it's not something someone who had a more casual level of knowledge about transgender issues would necessarily know about.
Do tell, what form of media is representation important for? What makes video games so unsuitable? Why does it even fucking matter to you? Why do you care?
crackhead_bob
Member
What is deadnaming?
Garrett Hawke
Member
Too hard to animate m/m scenes :lol
In a game where you're supposedly able to have a realtionship weather it's m/f, m/m, or f/f, it doesn't matter because I said so....
what?
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
Can you speak to this more?
ultimatebestusername
Member
In regards to the deadnaming, I find the dialogue to be completely tokenistic in its approach. She's responding to a question that has absolutely nothing to do with her being trans, and honestly doesn't even answer what Ryder asks. To respond with essentially 'by the way I'm trans' suggests that it defines her personality to such a degree that she has literally nothing else to talk about, addressing it in a way that is often considered trans-phobic and hence disingenuous to trans people. Bioware made a (afaik) one-dimensional trans character: the predominant facet of her personality being that she is trans. Seems like a checklist item to me.
Honestly I think the better approach is Dumbledore/Harry Potter approach, where it wasn't revealed that he is gay for a while because it was simply not relevant to the events at hand until later in the series. It promotes the idea that LGBT+ people in narratives can have distinct and well-developed personalities that are not at all defined by their sexual orientation or gender identity, which in my opinion is a much more appropriate parallel to real life.
Honestly I think the better approach is Dumbledore/Harry Potter approach, where it wasn't revealed that he is gay for a while because it was simply not relevant to the events at hand until later in the series. It promotes the idea that LGBT+ people in narratives can have distinct and well-developed personalities that are not at all defined by their sexual orientation or gender identity, which in my opinion is a much more appropriate parallel to real life.
Wouldn't be surprised if the cut Salarian was supposed to be the M/M squadmate romance. That would have been an interesting sex scene... The game obviously had a rough development, seems premature to say whether they were consciously or not shunning Gay men or if it was just an unfortunate casualty. I don't think a single BioWare game has come out without some group being totally ticked off about the romance options. I know a lot were unhappy with DAI due to the various race and gender preferences, especially straight males. People hated the player sexual stuff in DA2, but then others hated the set preferences in ME3 and DAI. It's a tough position to be in.
The deadnaming thing was definitely a well meaning gesture that was handled very poorly. Even if you aren't familiar with the idea of deadnaming the interaction is just really weird for someone you just met to divulge such information and it felt very odd. BioWare try pretty hard to be inclusive, they've had trans characters before, Jien Garson's VA is a trans woman, it's unfortunate they let something like this slip by. They probably were too caught up with thinking they were being inclusive and that it was a great little personal story that highlighted just what the Initiative as a whole is all about that they never thought to actually check with anyone of this was a good idea. It's like the worst way to handle inclusion.
The deadnaming thing was definitely a well meaning gesture that was handled very poorly. Even if you aren't familiar with the idea of deadnaming the interaction is just really weird for someone you just met to divulge such information and it felt very odd. BioWare try pretty hard to be inclusive, they've had trans characters before, Jien Garson's VA is a trans woman, it's unfortunate they let something like this slip by. They probably were too caught up with thinking they were being inclusive and that it was a great little personal story that highlighted just what the Initiative as a whole is all about that they never thought to actually check with anyone of this was a good idea. It's like the worst way to handle inclusion.
I am putting this in spoiler tags to make extra certain it's clear I'm frankly discussing the situation that may include spoilers.
I apologize for that novel, or if it's difficult/too long to read. It's not just one thing though. It's the entire unfortunate situation, and without the context of the stringing along in the hype and the cumulative effect of all the little things adding up, the outrage may look more unreasonable. Obviously, I don't find the outrage unreasonable, but I'm not accusing the developers of intentionally hurting/angering so many people.
The kicker? If the conspiracy theory that EA or Bioware higher ups worried about PR from Gamergaters or others that would flip out about LGBT characters getting too much attention is true, well those people are flipping out anyway and would have no matter what content the game had because the narrative on that front was decided and set in stone months/years ago no matter what the game looked like. I mean come on some people actually think they made females 'ugly' to spite straight men.
Regardless of their reasoning, the ME: Andromeda team has succeeded in ticking off virtually everyone at once. Personally I still look forward to playing the game, but I am shaking my head sadly at this whole ordeal.
I realize superfluous posts here are discouraged, so I limit my participation the years I've had this account. However since this does apply to me I feel I'd like to at least give my perspective.
This is a culmination of a great many little things that all add up to be a huge thing to some of us. It starts with the hype, the way the developers teased, and the way things happened these last few days that made the impact worse. That is the short of it. I apologize if a bunch of people already went over this, but here is the long of it:
When the character Jaal was revealed, to say developers gushed is an understatement. Now when asked who could romance him (or if anyone could) they'd give the "we aren't revealing that kind of stuff wait for the guide or game itself" kind of response. There are just two big problems with this. One, both male and female developers continued to hype Jaal relentlessly saying how much they love the character (at least one male developer saying something along the lines of "I think I'm in love"). Two, despite saying they weren't talking romance and spoiling things they did spoil at least two straight male player romances! They continued deflecting questions from LGBT players during this other than saying they are accounted for. So I stress here the drama over Jaal isn't just that he's not bi, it's that they rather cruelly hyped him for weeks/months while refusing to let people down easily. And boy have some of the people on BSN gotten extremely worked up over this constant teasing...
So last Thursday data miners going through the early access data found files showing checks for which Ryder was talking along with can_romance_Jaal style text. Other files like this matched up with known data. It was then assumed he was bi, since the files almost clearly indicated it. Then Saturday data miners realized they couldn't find audio, causing mass hysteria by some (be it women wanting to do a male/male romance or others) worrying about if he swung both ways. It seemed unbelievable that they would ever string people along so long without letting them down easy. Remember this is not just saying they weren't saying which way any character swung or if they were able to be romanced. It was doing so while at the same time relentlessly hyping both the character and his irresistible qualities. They spoiled tons about how he acts despite the chatter about not wanting to spoil things, along with the male/female spoilers in the trailers.
Now it was promised that if Scott or Sara had no chance with a character they would be able to learn this very quickly. What seemed odd is reviewers seemed to lack any such solid information about Jaal. Was it some sort of specific NDA? Who knows, but when the embargo lifted contradictory info flew everywhere. Finally some of the developers anonymously told at least two of the reviewers that Jaal should turn Scott down. One of those reviewers said he was able to flirt with Jaal with Scott, and the developer that anonymously talked to him said he was surprised because Jaal should turn Scott down.
Now is this a bug? Was the reviewer just going through friendship dialog and not realizing it? Who knows, but it just adds to the mood whiplash from the people hyped up by the developers' constant swooning over the character.
So it turns out Jaal is straight. I don't know if he's bugged and won't allow flirts to turn down people playing Scott, as was promised for the characters. Now that alone, as cruel as the stringing along was, would not be enough to cause the explosion of drama as bad as has happened.
No, it turns out there's a laundry list of things that seem to push m/m romances in particular off to the side.
First, at some point one developer or another said something along the lines of a bi or gay character "has to make sense." This developer, or perhaps another, (and this part I don't remember 100%) said something along the lines that it has to be a part of who the character is. Now how this was interpreted by players is all over the place, but the absolute worst case interpretation is that first a character must "act" gay/bi and two that somehow it must be some huge part of who the character is. The fact is being gay/bi/whatever doesn't define who someone is, so that entire exchange caused all kinds of sarcastic outrage. There are a couple pages in the 1000+ page Jaal thread on BSN that are dedicated to people mocking that. This is important information because it's one of the little things that amplify the intensity reaction.
The fact there are two m/m romances both not in the squad and quite possibly being far smaller in scope than some of the m/f and f/f romances has been covered extensively in this topic I'm sure, so I'll leave that one there.
Okay now onto another point. Supposedly all sex scenes are either m/f or f/f. This has the unfortunate implication of falling into the "let's not tick off the straight male demographic that might get mad/grossed out by m/m scenes even existing" type of mentality, even if that's not the reason. Combine this with the location of the m/m romance and you get some very unfortunate implications, even if those implications aren't true. Combine that with the developers largely deflecting questions about same sex romances while at the same time incessantly teasing and you get a bunch of even more angry/hurt people.
To put a cherry on top of this, male nudity is played for laughs in at least one scene. There's nothing wrong with that, but the unfortunate implications are there: male nudity is for laughs, while female nudity is to excite males. That is a heavy accusation, and I swear I'm not accusing Bioware, EA, or some PR higher up of that mentality. But the fact is this is a laundry list of things that all circumstantially look real bad on the "straight guys are our demographic, some find f/f stuff hot, but let's keep the m/m stuff tucked away and toned down to not offend/gross them out." Again I'm not saying that's their reasoning, but everything exactly aligns to make it look that way.
That was already explosive, but add in a "By the way I'm transgender." moment that screams a misguided effort to put a spotlight on inclusion and KABOOM!
This is a culmination of a great many little things that all add up to be a huge thing to some of us. It starts with the hype, the way the developers teased, and the way things happened these last few days that made the impact worse. That is the short of it. I apologize if a bunch of people already went over this, but here is the long of it:
When the character Jaal was revealed, to say developers gushed is an understatement. Now when asked who could romance him (or if anyone could) they'd give the "we aren't revealing that kind of stuff wait for the guide or game itself" kind of response. There are just two big problems with this. One, both male and female developers continued to hype Jaal relentlessly saying how much they love the character (at least one male developer saying something along the lines of "I think I'm in love"). Two, despite saying they weren't talking romance and spoiling things they did spoil at least two straight male player romances! They continued deflecting questions from LGBT players during this other than saying they are accounted for. So I stress here the drama over Jaal isn't just that he's not bi, it's that they rather cruelly hyped him for weeks/months while refusing to let people down easily. And boy have some of the people on BSN gotten extremely worked up over this constant teasing...
So last Thursday data miners going through the early access data found files showing checks for which Ryder was talking along with can_romance_Jaal style text. Other files like this matched up with known data. It was then assumed he was bi, since the files almost clearly indicated it. Then Saturday data miners realized they couldn't find audio, causing mass hysteria by some (be it women wanting to do a male/male romance or others) worrying about if he swung both ways. It seemed unbelievable that they would ever string people along so long without letting them down easy. Remember this is not just saying they weren't saying which way any character swung or if they were able to be romanced. It was doing so while at the same time relentlessly hyping both the character and his irresistible qualities. They spoiled tons about how he acts despite the chatter about not wanting to spoil things, along with the male/female spoilers in the trailers.
Now it was promised that if Scott or Sara had no chance with a character they would be able to learn this very quickly. What seemed odd is reviewers seemed to lack any such solid information about Jaal. Was it some sort of specific NDA? Who knows, but when the embargo lifted contradictory info flew everywhere. Finally some of the developers anonymously told at least two of the reviewers that Jaal should turn Scott down. One of those reviewers said he was able to flirt with Jaal with Scott, and the developer that anonymously talked to him said he was surprised because Jaal should turn Scott down.
Now is this a bug? Was the reviewer just going through friendship dialog and not realizing it? Who knows, but it just adds to the mood whiplash from the people hyped up by the developers' constant swooning over the character.
So it turns out Jaal is straight. I don't know if he's bugged and won't allow flirts to turn down people playing Scott, as was promised for the characters. Now that alone, as cruel as the stringing along was, would not be enough to cause the explosion of drama as bad as has happened.
No, it turns out there's a laundry list of things that seem to push m/m romances in particular off to the side.
First, at some point one developer or another said something along the lines of a bi or gay character "has to make sense." This developer, or perhaps another, (and this part I don't remember 100%) said something along the lines that it has to be a part of who the character is. Now how this was interpreted by players is all over the place, but the absolute worst case interpretation is that first a character must "act" gay/bi and two that somehow it must be some huge part of who the character is. The fact is being gay/bi/whatever doesn't define who someone is, so that entire exchange caused all kinds of sarcastic outrage. There are a couple pages in the 1000+ page Jaal thread on BSN that are dedicated to people mocking that. This is important information because it's one of the little things that amplify the intensity reaction.
The fact there are two m/m romances both not in the squad and quite possibly being far smaller in scope than some of the m/f and f/f romances has been covered extensively in this topic I'm sure, so I'll leave that one there.
Okay now onto another point. Supposedly all sex scenes are either m/f or f/f. This has the unfortunate implication of falling into the "let's not tick off the straight male demographic that might get mad/grossed out by m/m scenes even existing" type of mentality, even if that's not the reason. Combine this with the location of the m/m romance and you get some very unfortunate implications, even if those implications aren't true. Combine that with the developers largely deflecting questions about same sex romances while at the same time incessantly teasing and you get a bunch of even more angry/hurt people.
To put a cherry on top of this, male nudity is played for laughs in at least one scene. There's nothing wrong with that, but the unfortunate implications are there: male nudity is for laughs, while female nudity is to excite males. That is a heavy accusation, and I swear I'm not accusing Bioware, EA, or some PR higher up of that mentality. But the fact is this is a laundry list of things that all circumstantially look real bad on the "straight guys are our demographic, some find f/f stuff hot, but let's keep the m/m stuff tucked away and toned down to not offend/gross them out." Again I'm not saying that's their reasoning, but everything exactly aligns to make it look that way.
That was already explosive, but add in a "By the way I'm transgender." moment that screams a misguided effort to put a spotlight on inclusion and KABOOM!
I apologize for that novel, or if it's difficult/too long to read. It's not just one thing though. It's the entire unfortunate situation, and without the context of the stringing along in the hype and the cumulative effect of all the little things adding up, the outrage may look more unreasonable. Obviously, I don't find the outrage unreasonable, but I'm not accusing the developers of intentionally hurting/angering so many people.
The kicker? If the conspiracy theory that EA or Bioware higher ups worried about PR from Gamergaters or others that would flip out about LGBT characters getting too much attention is true, well those people are flipping out anyway and would have no matter what content the game had because the narrative on that front was decided and set in stone months/years ago no matter what the game looked like. I mean come on some people actually think they made females 'ugly' to spite straight men.
Regardless of their reasoning, the ME: Andromeda team has succeeded in ticking off virtually everyone at once. Personally I still look forward to playing the game, but I am shaking my head sadly at this whole ordeal.
Complistic
Member
I was shocked that we're actually berating a dev that tries to be inclusive of so many different types of people, just because they didn't do it 100% right, then I remembered,
AlexFlame116
Member
Wat?
I don't know man. I mean, if I introduce myself to someone by saying, "Hi I'm Alex. I'm straight but people thought I looked like a girl so they called me Lexi. But that's not who I am. I'm glad I got to meet you."I was shocked that we're actually berating a dev that tries to be inclusive of so many different types of people, then I remembered,
Wouldn't that be a little weird?
In the end it's bad writing. Almost like an afterthought.
Have you played BOTW?
Complistic
Member
Seems pretty much on par for the game where everyone tells you about themselves instead of showing. It's just sloppy writing, like ms. my face is tired.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Straight male Inquisitors only had 2 options in Dragon Age and only one of them was a party member. Seems possible to me.
Frozenprince
Banned
Or it's like we can be critical of something.I was shocked that we're actually berating a dev that tries to be inclusive of so many different types of people, just because they didn't do it 100% right, then I remembered,
Shocking.
I know.
Heavy middle game quest/plot spoilers for Breath of the Wild :
The game features a Gerudo city and you need to enter it to begin the quest for the dungeun located in the desert. Unlike other games in the series where you will be trown for entering a thief hideout, this time the Gerudo women trow people out because they only allow women on the city. So there is a quest so that Link has to get women's clothing wich includes a veil to hide his face (that lots of people in the game already said to be pretty delicate, I must add). The quest is thousand times better than what FF7 did 20 years ago, but it has it's problems, specialy in how the game uses the "gay" sound bit for the person which you buy the clothes (and was the person some npc says that "a men that managed to enter", so no trans person here), imply a 5 o clock shadow when the wind takes out his veil (and make some "you are a man" line choices) implications. And you can only stay and walk in the city border with the full set equiped. It is implied that either trans people don't exist (otherwise self identification would means more than appearance) or that the Gerudo people are incredibly transfobic since nobody that looks like that was assigned male at birth is allowed to enter. Like those shitty "womyn born womyn" stuff from second wave feminist (cough cough TERFs cough cough)
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
I was shocked that we're actually berating a dev that tries to be inclusive of so many different types of people, just because they didn't do it 100% right, then I remembered,
"NeoGAF is a hivemind" is one of the laziest responses to a thread ever.
In any event, it's interesting that some in here voiced the opinion to the tune of, "If they can't do it right, it would be better if they don't include it in the first place", considering that I distinctly remember such argument were not popular in many threads discussing minority placements in video games before in GAF.
I wonder if this was the result of the much discussed Bro culture in the other thread, where one employee said he/she was constantly subjected to.
I was shocked that we're actually berating a dev that tries to be inclusive of so many different types of people, just because they didn't do it 100% right, then I remembered,
I am not shocked that some people came here to basically say "Here, there are LGBT people who do gay stuff, k? so stop complaining". Smh.
deadscreensky
Member
To be fair the definitions given in the OP don't actually fit what's shown of the game. Some people might find it unrealistic for a trans person to talk this way ~200 years in the future on a spaceship in another galaxy, surrounded by aliens -- and that's fine -- but it doesn't fit any sort of classic definition of deadnaming (which yes, is cruel, and something done to other people). It's not great writing by any means, but it's hardly impossible that this totally fake fantasy character could be comfortable enough to mention their distant history. I imagine the intention was actually to show how progressive the future is, that nobody is concerned or upset by this transition so there's not the same trauma that might be associated with it today. (Reminds me a bit of Sya in Guild Wars 2, in that sense.) It's clumsy as all hell, but this is Bioware here.
(And while there are very good reasons to present this subject matter as a universal taboo, just to get ignorant people to act politely, it's not like trans people are some monolith who all feel the same way about deadnames anyway.)
I am sooo far behind in this thread but I just wanted to say, it's not randomization if it keeps happening. It's not random if there's a pattern.